Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures Part 11

The gardener was impressed by the beautiful coloring of the blossom, so he nurtured, transplanted and cultivated it into a beautiful flower. It was from this bush, once a weed, Queen Victoria selected the flower she carried when she entered the Crystal Palace to meet the world's representatives.

When Delia Laughlin went astray, her father drove her from his door.

She was of that temperament that must either go to the heights or to the depths, and to the depths she went. Down the rapids of a sinful life her steps were swift. Along the Bowery she made her way to Five Points, where thieves and drunkards dwelt. It was said she could drink deeper, curse louder, and fight fiercer than any inmate of the most wicked spot in New York City. Mrs. Whittemore went one day on her mission of mercy through the slums. She sought some one to accompany her who knew the deepest haunts of the wicked. Delia Laughlin was recommended to her. Mrs. Whittemore, with her Bible in one hand and a fragrant rose in the other, made her rounds. She was deeply impressed with the intellect and culture, as well as the beauty of the wayward girl who had been her guide through the slums. "Dear girl," she said; "you are too bright and beautiful to be down here. I wish you would come to see me at the Door of Hope Mission," and slipping a coin and the white rose into the soiled fingers she said, "Good-bye."

The girl loved flowers, so she took the white rose to her room and put it in water. Then with the coin she went to drown her misery in drink.

Forty-eight hours later she had slept off the debauch, and taking the flower from the vase she said: "Ah! that represents my life. Once I was as pure as the rose when the good woman gave it to me. Those withered petals represent the withered graces of my life." From out that little flower an arrow went to the heart of Delia Laughlin. She took the street car and went to the Door of Hope Mission. Mrs.

Whittemore met her and they talked together. While the girl wept Mrs.

Whittemore prayed; she said: "O G.o.d, this poor girl has no other friend than you. Her father's home is closed against her. You have promised, when father and mother forsake, you will take the deserted one. Won't you take her now?" And G.o.d did take her; from that hour she was safe in the cleft of the Rock of Ages. When she addressed twelve hundred inmates of Auburn prison, a reporter said: "Never did John Wesley, John Knox, or Martin Luther do greater work for the Master."

When laid in her casket in the Door of Hope Mission a few years later, a New York paper said: "Never did a fairer face or more eloquent tongue do work in slum life than Delia Laughlin."

"The stone o'er which you trample, May be a diamond in the rough.

It may never never sparkle, Though made of diamond stuff.

"Because someone must find it, If it's ever found; And then someone must grind it, If it's ever ground.

"But when it's found, and when it's ground, And when it's burnished bright; Then henceforth a diamond crowned 'Twill s.h.i.+ne with l.u.s.trous light."

You can't tell what seed will grow.

After the Civil War I lived for two years in Richmond, Kentucky.

During that time the Klu Klux movement broke out in fury. Men were hanged, others whipped and driven from the county. On my way to market one morning I saw a man hanging from a limb of a tree in the court-house yard. On his sleeve was pinned a piece of paper, on which was written, "Let no one touch this body until the sun goes down." All day that body hung there and not an officer of the law dared to cut the rope. Such was the reign of terror no one offered a protest. One Sat.u.r.day night a young man named Byron was hanged in the same court-house yard. He was the only son of a widowed mother, and he begged the mob to let him live for his mother's sake. Sunday morning several empty bottles lay about the tree, indicating that the men were drinking who did the deed. The evening after the hanging I gave an address in the Methodist Church for the Good Templars. I had no thought of referring to the hanging of young Byron, but in showing up the evils of drink, those empty bottles came to my mind, and I could imagine the old mother then weeping over her dead boy. Without considering the consequences I denounced the Klu Klux and the cowardice that permitted such lawlessness. After the lecture a young man of influence advised me to leave at once and not dare spend the night in the town. I felt sure the Klan could not be called together that night, so I ventured to spend the night at home. About eleven o'clock that night the front gate was opened, and tramp, tramp, tramp, came the sound of feet toward the cottage, which was about forty feet from the street. It seemed as if all was over with me, when the "pluck" of a string introduced a serenade from the string band of the little city. Since the daughters of Judah hung their harps upon the willows, no sweeter music has ever fallen upon mortal ears than I heard that night from the string band of Richmond, Kentucky.

I do not know how much my speaking out against Klu Klux had to do with arresting the outlawry that made the roads rattle with the clatter of the hoofs of horses at midnight raids, but I do know young Byron was the last man hanged by the Klu Klux in Madison county, and may I not hope the unpremeditated protest made in that Sunday evening address, helped in some measure to bring about the transformation, and contribute a mite to the public sentiment that has made Richmond a saloonless place in which to live.

You cannot tell what seed will grow. Already out of the new woman movement has come a host led by such women as Frances E. Willard, Mary A. Livermore, Clara Hoffman, Dr. Anna Shaw, Jane Addams, Maude Ballington Booth, Susan B. Anthony, and in our own state, Frances E.

Beauchamp. These and many more have been springing the bolts that have barred woman from spheres of great usefulness.

Allow me to say, I have no patience with the mannish woman (and about as little use for a feminine man); but if this old world is ever to be redeemed it is because He who sitteth on the throne has said: "Behold I make all things new."

Oh! for a new man, who will stop the waste of wealth and destruction of morals to which I have referred. Oh! for the day when "each s.e.x will be the equal of the other in the average, each above the other in specialties; when each can see in the other a source of inspiration,"

and both worthy to have been created in the beginning a "little lower than the angels" and in the end to be crowned with glory and honor.

V

THE SAFE SIDE OF LIFE FOR YOUNG MEN. A PLEA FOR TOTAL ABSTINENCE AND A BETTER LIFE.

I do not a.s.sert that everyone who drinks intoxicating liquor as a beverage will become a drunkard, but I do come before this audience to hold up total-abstinence as safer and better for practice. Drunkards are made of moderate drinkers; drunkards are never made of total abstainers. One _may_ drink and never get drunk; one cannot get drunk who never drinks. Take away every drunkard from the earth today and moderate drinking will soon create another supply; but sweep all drunkenness from the world, let total-abstinence be the absolute rule and the last drunkard will have debased his body, ruined his character, and doomed his soul.

Since running the risk of being a moderate drinker is so great, I commend to the young people before me the caution of the Scotch minister, who, when called upon to marry a couple, said: "My young friends, marriage is a blessing to a great many persons; it's a curse to some; it's a risk for everybody; will you take the venture?" I presume they did. I do not believe the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage is a benefit to anyone, yet for argument's sake I will permit one who drinks to say: "Moderate drinking is a benefit to a few persons; it's a curse to a great many; it's a risk for everybody; let's take a drink!" Against this I affirm that total abstinence is a blessing to millions; it's a curse to n.o.body; it's safe and right for everybody; then let's take the pledge and G.o.d helping us, let's keep it.

A very comforting reply to the infidel who claims there will be no hereafter is the inscription on the tomb of a faithful Christian:

"If there's another world, he's in bliss; If not, he's made the best of this."

If there is no hereafter, to say the least the Christian is even with the infidel, while if there is a hereafter it's bad for the infidel.

If a moderate drinker has sufficient self-control to escape being a drunkard, the total abstainer is equally safe; but if the moderate drinker loses his self-control and becomes a drunkard his doom is sealed. The safe definition of temperance is: "Moderation in regard to things useful and right, total-abstinence in regard to things hurtful and wrong." Is alcoholic liquor as a beverage hurtful and wrong? It's the source of more misery, cruelty and crime than any other evil of the world!

Some years ago after a lecture along this line, a doubting Thomas said to me: "What answer have you for the scholar who claims your very word 'temperance' is the offspring of a word that signifies moderation?" I said: "The same I would give to a Darwinian if he were to tell me I am a descendant of the ape; and that is, I rejoice to know I'm an improvement on my ancestor. To one who charges me with being a distant relative of the chimpanzee, I give the reply of Henry Ward Beecher: 'I don't care how _far distant_.'" I acknowledge my ignorance of the derivation of the word temperance, but I do know drunkenness comes from drinking intoxicating liquor, therefore I favor total-abstinence and recommend it as the safe side of life for young men.

While, by quoting isolated pa.s.sages of the Bible, advocates of moderation have succeeded in filling the air with dust of doubt about the teaching of the Scriptures on the wine question, there is one thing about which there is no question, and that is the consent of the Bible to total-abstinence for anyone who desires and "dares to be a Daniel." I would rather search my Bible for permission to give up that over which my brother may stumble into ruin, than to see how far I can go in the use of it without committing sin. Marriage feasts in Cana of Galilee two thousand years ago do not concern me so much as the social feasts of the present age where "wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging," and many are "deceived thereby."

A noted Bible scholar says: "The Bible is not simply a schedule of sins and duties catalogued and labeled, but a revelation of immutable principles, in the application of which G.o.d tests the sincerity of our profession." To drink intoxicating liquor in this enlightened age, with all the woes of intemperance about us and responsibilities of life upon us, is a violation of every immutable principle laid down in the Bible. First, it's against the law of prudence, which says of two possible paths one should take the safer. Which is the safer, moderation or total-abstinence? Next, it's against the law of humility, which teaches where mightier than we have fallen, we must distrust ourselves. Have mightier than we fallen through strong drink?

Next, it's against the law of human brotherhood, which makes it imperative upon the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak. Is the drinker weak? Next, it's against the law of expediency; "it is good neither to eat flesh nor drink wine nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth." Do our brothers stumble over strong drink? Last, it's against the law of self-denial; "if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend." Does strong drink make our brother to offend? On these immutable principles the cause of sobriety is built, and the gates of the devil of drink shall not prevail against it.

Young man, let me give you a bit of advice and a.s.surance. Never take a drink of intoxicating liquor as a beverage, and when you are as old as I am you will not regret it. You cannot find me in all the world, one man between forty and eighty years of age, an abstainer all his life, who would change that record if he could. Boys, that's a very safe rule that has not a single exception. But how many are there who regret they ever put the bottle to their lips? "If I had only let strong drink alone" is the bitter wail of millions of men and women.

From pauper poverty and prison cells, electric chairs and dying drunkard's lips comes the cry: "Drink has been my curse!"

Does some young man in this audience say, "I can quit if I please?"

Then I beg you to _please_, ere you reach the time when you will strive to quit, but in vain. I know you don't intend to go beyond your power of control; neither did the drunkards who have gone before you.

Do you suppose Edgar Allen Poe dreamt when he took his first drink in the social gathering of an old Virginia gentleman's home that it would bring from his brilliant brain the weird strain:

"Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Do you suppose Thomas F. Marshall, our gifted Kentucky orator, dreamt when he stood at the foot of the ladder of fame and all Kentucky pointed him to the golden glory of its summit, that his last words would be: "And this is the end. Tom Marshall dying; dying in a borrowed bed, under a borrowed sheet, and without a decent suit of clothes in which to be buried!"

I well remember the first time I saw Thomas Marshall. He had returned from Was.h.i.+ngton, where he had thrilled Congress by his eloquence. He was announced to speak in Lexington on court day afternoon. I went with my father from our country home to hear the then golden mouthed orator. For nearly two hours he swayed that audience as the storm king sways the mountain pine. On unseen wings of eloquence he soared to heights I had never imagined within the reach of mortal tongue.

I also remember the last time I saw this brilliant Kentuckian. He was standing on a street corner in Lexington, Kentucky. His hair hung a tangled ma.s.s about his forehead, his eagle eyes were dimmed by debauch, and a thin, worn coat was b.u.t.toned over soiled linen. As he straightened himself and started to the bar-room, I could see traces of greatness lingering about his brow like sheet lightning about the bosom of a summer storm cloud. Not long after he was telling political stories in a drinking tavern. When he tired of the tumult of the bar-room and a sense of his better self came over him, some one said: "Give us another, Tom." Rising to his feet he said: "You remind me of a set of bantam chickens, picking the sore head of an eagle when his wings are broken."

At one time in a temperance revival in Was.h.i.+ngton he took the pledge and kept it for months. During this time in a temperance meeting he was called upon to speak. The following brief extract shows the charm of his eloquence:

"I would not exchange my conscious being as a strictly sober man, the glad play with which my pulse now beats healthful music through my veins, the bounding vivacity with which my life blood courses its exultant way through every fiber of my frame, the communion high which my now healthful eye and ear hold with the universe around me, the splendors of the morning, the softness of the evening sky, the beauty, the verdure of the earth, the music of winds and waters. No, sir! with all these grand a.s.sociations of external nature re-opened to the avenues of sense, though poverty dogged me, though scorn pointed its slow finger at me as I pa.s.sed, though want, dest.i.tution and every element of early misery, save only crime, met my waking eye from day to day: Not for the brightest wreath that ever encircled a statesman's brow; not if some angel commissioned by heaven, or rather some demon sent from h.e.l.l to test the resisting power of my virtuous resolution, were to tempt me back to the blighting bowl; not for the honors a world could bestow, would I cast from me this pledge of a liberated mind, this talisman against temptation, and plunge again into the horrors that once beset my path. So help me Heaven, I would spurn beneath my feet all the gifts a universe could offer, and live and die as I am--poor but sober."

Drinking young man, Thomas F. Marshall once stood where you now stand.

He said then what you say now, yet after that beautiful tribute to sobriety and the pledge of total-abstinence, he stood at a blacksmith shop door, and as the smith drew the red hot iron from the forge, Mr.

Marshall said to some friends: "Gentlemen, I would seize that rod of heated iron and hold it in my hand till it cools, if it would cure me of my terrible appet.i.te for strong drink." This is but one of the many fallen stars the demon of drink has s.n.a.t.c.hed from the galaxy of Kentucky's greatness and hurled into the darkness of eternal night.

A man who could drink and not get drunk said to me: "I have no patience with, nor sympathy for a drunkard. If I couldn't eat what I want and quit when I choose, I wouldn't claim to be a man." Whether he could or not, depends on conditions. Let my arm represent the scale of life, with will on one side and appet.i.te on the other. When a man is healthy his will stands at eighty, his appet.i.te at fifty. That man eats when he likes, or lets it alone as he chooses. But let this healthy, strong man take typhoid fever, and after six or eight weeks be reduced to almost a skeleton. At this stage, the fever having subsided, let the doctor say to the once strong man: "The fever is broken; be careful about your diet, no solid food, only chicken broth and gruel." Place by the bed of this once strong man a table and on this table a roast turkey, stuffed with oysters. On the floor place a coffin and say to the patient: "You see that turkey and that coffin.

If you eat the turkey today, you'll be in the coffin tomorrow." Go out and leave the man alone with the turkey. Will he eat it? I don't care if he's a preacher or a doctor he will, regardless of the advice of doctor or terror of the waiting coffin. Why will he eat when he knows it means death? Because his will has gone down to twenty and his appet.i.te up to one hundred.

My father had typhoid fever and when the time of convalescing came my mother left him alone while she was in the yard with her flowers. I went into the house and found father had left his bed, crawled to the cupboard and had hold of what was left of a chicken. I called to mother; she came running, and taking the chicken from him said: "Don't you know to eat solid food will kill you?" Father replied: "I know if you hadn't come in I would have had one square meal."

Did I say too much when I said the preacher would eat the turkey?

Years ago Saint John's pulpit in Louisville, Kentucky, was filled by a preacher so gifted that strangers in the city were attracted by his fame as an orator. He had an invalid mother, who in her wheel chair would attend every service, and was made happy in her affliction by the sermons of her eloquent son. He married a wealthy widow and had everything wealth and refinement could suggest. He saw no wrong in the wine gla.s.s and kept a supply in his cellar. Gradually appet.i.te demanded stronger drinks and one morning his wife said: "Husband, you were drunk last night." A few months later he resigned his position and went west, hoping to break the spell of his habit. But no mountain was high enough, nor cavern dark enough for him to hide from his mad pursuer. He returned to Louisville and gave himself up to the maddening bowl. His wife left him and went to a country home which she had saved out of her wealth. One night when he was sleeping drunk in one room, his old mother in another said: "Oh G.o.d, is my cup of sorrow not yet full?" The pitying angel pushed ajar the golden gates and the broken heart entered into rest.

Time and again this man took the pledge, but only to fail. When the "blue ribbon" wave swept the country he again took the pledge, and this time went on the platform as a temperance advocate. He drew great audiences, and when he had kept his pledge for months we invited him to Louisville. It was my privilege to introduce him, or rather to present him to the great audience. Before going on the platform he said: "I have made a mistake in coming here. It was here I lost everything a man could ask to make him happy. The memory of my sainted mother comes over me, and my wife is so near and yet so far from me."

To bring him back to himself I said: "These things will help you to give the greatest lecture of your life. Come, a great audience of old friends are waiting."

When introduced he said: "My friends, if I ever did a dishonorable act before I fell from the pulpit through drink, rise and tell me." Soon he had his audience in tears and lifting his eyes heavenward he said: "O my sainted Mother, look down from your home in glory and see your poor drunken boy. He has staggered all the way back, his feet upon the up-hillward way, and will travel it with a martyr's step."

He further said: "Will I ever drink again? No; this brow was not made to wear the brand of a va.s.sal, nor these hands the chains of a drunkard. Here in Louisville, where I fell in my manhood's might, I vow I will never drink again." Manhood's might is too weak to win alone in the battle against sin. Poor J.J. Talbott went down to rise no more, and on his dying bed, when a minister quoted pa.s.sage after pa.s.sage of promise from G.o.d's word, the answer came: "Not for me! Not for me!" Peace to his ashes.